The suit operative tutorial is a good benchmark for ground based fps
The temptation is clear, but that tutorial simply isn't running the things that kill performance; it mostly sticks to merely bad, somewhere between 45-60fps in my case (60fps from... sitting in the detention cell in security, staring directly at a wall). It doesn't lose much performance over an hour of testing. There's no relevant travel (though there's one major hitch on approach to base), and no random NPCs ing about. Even so, standing perfectly still until the energy went to 50% showed variation between 42 and 62fps as absolutely nothing happened.
Next test: Run at least an hour in main game, staring at some wall somewhere. For starters, faffing about on some plain ground (that just SCREAMS "gravel and sand texture on featureless mesh) ran at 120fps; it's not being on foot, it's having anything on foot related around.
Just looking at Piazza's Laboratory from closer than 3km away drops the frame rate straight to 40. Disembarking to shove my nose into a nondescript hull plate on my Diamondback Scout makes it touch on 55. GPU utilization very uneven, usually around 40% (15% to 59% observed), CPU at slightly over 50%. VRAM about 9G, RAM about 8G.
80% extended maverick battery left, still framerates touching as high as 56 staring into the plate. Drops to 40 if I look at the settlement. Drastic performance loss not yet in evidence. Might require multiple jumps? Carrying on staring at plate.
75% battery left. Plate isn't any more fun at 51fps. Touching the controls seems to have bumped it up as high as 57. Power saving issues?
66% battery left. Watching my breath fogging up the helmet. Again frame rate bumped up as I alt-tabbed. Watching the settlement, there's one skimmer about and Radeon software reports 42fps while the game says 38. Different filter lengths, I suppose. A Cobra landed with no obvious hit to performance.
62%. Bored, I fired three plasma shots into the air. RAM 7.9GB, VRAM 9.5GB. Switching to desktop frees up over 100MB VRAM. Perhaps time to walk over to the settlement soon?
55%. I would report the time, but clearly I forgot my clock aboard the ship. Found some timestamps in the comms panel, but they're not that recent. Still not seeing anything like the memory usage and slowdowns normal gameplay brings.
I have decided to walk to the settlement.
Walked over and tried to toss a grenade over the building. I have no idea how it came back into my field of view as I turned 90 degrees. Base is alarmed. Some sharpshooter shot me. Camping out on top of the power station. Can reach 50fps by staring at sky. 40 is the rule looking at the building. No movement in sight. Incidentally, they shot me, but I don't have as much as a fine.
Beginning to ponder if the real memory hog might be station interiors. Sitting just barely below 10G VRAM, still 8G RAM. Spotted GPU utilization 8%, lowest I've noticed yet. Some ship left, VRAM crept over 10G, still just over 50% CPU. Likely CPU or system RAM constrained in this particular workload, but it's not the same as when it "plays" at 20fps.
Bored again. Shot the skimmer. Alarms on. Now I do have a 100cr fine.
Went closer to destroy the skimmer. Also took out a roof strolling scientist.
Reinforcement dropship came by while I was playing "don't touch the floor" on the roof. Found a handful of guards stuck on the same corner. Reinforcements were kind of tough. Seems the framerate went up over 60 after there were no more NPCs. Dipped under 60 once outside, but only a little. I'm even seeing moments CPU usage dips below 50%.
Perhaps the NPC control routines are poorly threaded?
Running out and facing away from building, I'm even seeing the frame counter hit 89.
I have shut the facility down, but still have to run off some 500m to recall my ship.
This gravel texture could really use some normal and roughness maps. I do notice some colour variations from the underlying biome blender. It doesn't feel like plausible ground when there's nothing else to look at; it feels like camo.
Back in my ship, still at the surface. Frame rate in the low 70s. Time to test that station hypothesis. Wondering why my flight assist likes to turn off nowadays.
Had frame rates around 90-100 while flying over to Andrey Popov Works, notably lower than the normal 120. Dropped below 40 once inside, stabilized at about 54. Disembarking.
On foot in hangar, frame rate mostly a bit over 50, sometimes a bit over 60. Admired the bad LOD popping on the lifts once again. The green [] box between the triangles disappears just before the top light goes jaggy. Oh well, on to the concourse. VRAM now as 12.3GB.
6 power up missions available. Accept 1. Now 6/6 are invisible, because there's only one location. Frame rate mosly low 40s.
Picked up a few missions. Time for Apex ride to fetch some item. 60fps out the mail slot, 120 in supercruise. VRAM back to 9.6G.
As taxi drops out of orbital cruise, frame rate drops under 40fps.
Apex ride to the next fetch quest. I'd like a moment to acknowledge two good things about the Odyssey launch: They haven't demanded a manual reinstallation of the launcher for every little patch (yes, I remember, and no, there was no excuse), and I've seen shadows from multiple light sources. Lighting itself is still messed up.
Supercruise at 120fps with 9.6GB VRAM again.
Looking for locker 2 in the habitat. Walk up to a row of 4 lockers: 5, 3, 4, 1. Who numbers these? Found 2, 6, 7 in the opposite corner.
Took out some scavengers. 14GB VRAM allocated. Didn't expect the hostile reinforcements after I'd finished the mission. Taking taxi back to station. Regular supercruise deallocation brought it down to 10.5GB.
In station on foot, framerates now in 30s to low 40s. Sometimes hit as high as 50. Took an identical mission (same task, same reward, same target). VRAM 14.6GB as I walked up to taxi. 10.2GB during jump. Noticed taxi veered way off course just before jumping, no clue why.
After I shut down last night, the Odyssey client executable sat chewing on a little more than 1 CPU core, showing a black screen, all night. Just killed it. That's not great either.
